The present invention relates to thin absorbent articles, such as a sanitary napkin, a panty liner and an incontinence pad, that use an air-laid pulp non-woven fabric as an absorber.
Conventionally known absorbent articles such as a panty liner, a sanitary napkin or an incontinence pad are those in which an absorber formed of cotton-like pulp or the like is interposed between a liquid-impermeable back surface sheet such as a polyethylene sheet or a polyethylene sheet laminated non-woven fabric and a liquid-permeable front surface sheet such as a non-woven fabric. However, in recent years, a thin absorbent article using, as an absorber, an air-laid pulp non-woven fabric (hereinafter also simply referred to as an air-laid) is known because conventional absorbent articles have poor storability, poor fitting to a body, and because air-laids provide efficiency and resource saving in logistics.
On the other hand, as the liquid-permeable front surface sheet, a small opening polymer web (hereinafter referred to as a three-dimensional opening hole mesh sheet) that has a flexible silk-like texture is disclosed in Japanese Patent No. 2543502. This mesh sheet is a small opening polymer web corresponding to a crater-shaped opening portion that has the following configuration: as shown in FIG. 6, in a small opening polymer web 110 having a flexible silk-like texture on at least one surface, the silk-like texture surface of the web shows, when a distance between the web and the eyes of an observer is at least about 30.5 cm (12 inches), a pattern of discontinuous surface deformation portions 120 formed with openings of apex portions, each of which cannot be identified by normal naked eyes, and each of the surface deformation portions 120 has a substantially vertical height from a surface forming the surface deformation portion 120. At an end portion of each of the surface deformation portions 120, at least one small opening portion 125 is formed so as to substantially match with the maximum height point, and the small opening 125 has a relatively thin and irregularly-shaped petal-shaped portion such that the texture of the web becomes substantially flexible and silk-like and that the compression resistance and the shear resistance of the surface deformation portions 120 and the degree of contact with the skin of the observer are reduced, Japanese Patent No. 2543502 also discloses that macroscopic debossments are formed separately of the small opening 125 (see FIG. 6 of that patent), and that in order for a fluid transport property to an absorber to be enhanced, the bottom surface of these macroscopic debossments is opened as a fluid passage hole (see FIG. 7 of that patent).
Other examples in literature that disclose the three-dimensional opening hole mesh sheet in which, as described above, a large number of small convex portions protruding to the side of the skin are formed and in which the apex portions thereof are opened include Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 8-260329 and Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No, 10-131014.